Like many people I was in two minds about whether the BNP‘s leader should appear on the BBC’s Question Time. Free speech is important, but you have to draw the line somewhere. However, after seeing Nick Griffin’s performance, I think his appearance has only made him look a fool.

I came as little surprise to discover on the programme that Griffin is racist, admires Hitler, denies the Holocaust, is friends with Ku Klux Klan members, is Islamophobic, etc. But what people may not have realised, and which was revealed so spectacularly on the programme, is what a political lightweight he is. He was completely out of his depth, his arguments were feeble. He exhibited all the signs of someone who is nervous and unused to speaking in public, with the way he smirked and laughed nervously throughout and how he attacked Jack Straw right at the beginning, when the debate had barely even begun. Racists and bigots will always vote for parties such as the BNP, that’s a fact. However, the party’s recent gains have been due to them presenting themselves as a respectable party with a range of policies on different subjects. Hopefully people who may have been temped to vote for them will now realise that there is no depth to the party at all, nothing behind the racist venir. No policies, just prejudice.

Realising that the programme was a disaster for his party, Nick Griffin is now complaining about the make-up of the studio audience, and the questions that were put to him, claiming that it was “not a genuine Question Time”. I don’t think his claim is valid at all. A few members of the audience did clap following Griffin’s contributions, and a couple of those who spoke voiced opinions at least partially similar to his own. This reflects the population as a whole, where only a small minority agree with the BNP’s views. Certainly, if the programme had been recorded in Burnley, as he suggested, he might have found the audience more supportive, but that’s becasue it’s one of the small minority of areas of the country where his party have had any electoral success. Question Time is a national programme, so having an audience with such a high proportion of BNP supporters, not at all reflecting the rest of the country, would have been the type of extreme bias the BBC strives to avoid. As with certain other obnoxious minority organisations, the BNP and its followers like to delude themselves that everyone in the country shares their view. However, outside of their meetings and online discussion forums, this is simply a fantasy. Apparently, after the show, the Question Time website was flooded with support for Nick Griffin. This is hardly surprising. No doubt they were mobilised by websites, forums and messages, and encouraged to write in support of their leader. Again, they do like to delude themselves and say, “Look, everyone agrees with us!”

As for the questions, these are always chosen by the Question Time studio audience. If this time the audience wanted most of the questions to be about the BNP and its policies, it isn’t the programme’s producers’ place to prevent that. If the programme wasn’t a genuine Question Time, that’s because one if its panellists wasn’t a genuine politician, and the audience knew that.

Various and figures and statistics will now be twisted to suit the agenda of whoever is writing about them. The BNP will claim they gained extra members. Others will claim it was a disaster for them. I can’t really see that it will do the BNP any good in electoral terms. Eight million people watched, but that means the majority of people didn’t. So who did watch? Probably people who either support the BNP already, or who totally oppose what they stand for and wanted to see Griffin made a fool of. Even if some of the former group have now decided to join the BNP, they would have voted for them anyway. As for all the working-class people in places such a Burnley, they probably have little interest in politics, so will have been among the 40 million or so adults who didn’t watch. So their votes won’t have been influenced at all.

In conclusion, I don’t think this programme will have much effect on people’s voting either way. A more serious issue is that more people are voting for the BNP (in most cases, uninformed people who don’t watch Question Time) simply because they are disillusioned with the mainstream parties. Some of the senior politicians, in particular in the Labour Party, should try concentrating their energies into doing something about this, rather than protesting about a TV programme. That’s the real way to beat the BNP.

7 responses to “The BNP are idiots – in case we didn’t know”

People are voting for the BNP not “simply for the fact that they are disillusioned with the mainstream parties”. Rather it is because those parties are failing to address the very real concerns that a lot of people have with the issues of immigration and the European Union and the feeling of a loss of national identity. If, God forbid, the BNP should become a major force in politics it will be because of the mindset which took Hitler to power.

As for “Question Time”. I don’t often watch the program but I would be surprised and appalled if that was typical. Rather than intending to debate any issue properly, the producer seemed to have decided to spend the entire programme figuratively poking sticks in Griffiths’ eye. At more than one point Dimbleby seemed to be positively encouraging the audience to shout abuse at the man.

No. Much as I abhor Nick Griffiths I felt that that “Question Time” was a very poor advertisement for the BBC.

Darling: I’m as British as Queen Victoria!
Blackadder: So your father’s German, you’re half German, and you married a German?
(btw, it maybe a slip of the tongue of Blackadder- that’s Queen’s mother not father)
When Griffin defends Nazi, I bring the dialogue to mind.

Here’s my questions: What is B! How many supporters of BNP can trace their ancestors back to local dweller in Skara Brae? (Maybe Griffin knows he is the descendant of Anglo-Saxons.) And do they know if their ancestors didn’t mix different races, they would be more stupid and weaker?

Everyone knows German nationalism was the offspring of military ambition. Then GNPs, what’s your ambition? Just come to front I wish.

But I still think BNP’s leader should appear on the BBC’s Question Time. I believe British people will judge whether his speech is justified.

To start with ,let me be plain i am a commited BNP supporter,why.1 for all of your clever arguements,it dos not change the fact that brition is being taken over.2 you say they claim ,to have gained members,the fact is they have , other wise why would you mention this,i think the lady protests ,to much,WS,3 You also mention that NG, HAS NO POLITICAL SKILL, ,SO ,is that a bad thing,and that he lacks the smooth talking of the political elite, so what again. 4 Mobilised on web sites, your own words, so, what is wrong with that ,all political partys do this.why do you have to state this any way, O DEAR THE SKY IS BLUE

PLATO real truth is based on not only what is seen but what is not seen,

Race ic values are not racist, IC in the english, language, MEANS THE LAW OF NUMBERS ABOVE ALL ELSE,but you do not have the interlect to understand this ,thus you like so many village idiots ,find it in ,MORALISING,lOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR TO THE MOBS OF ROME.

Like so many in england, your mind operates on second rate bases, let me explain,1 some people believe only what they see,2 some people believe what they think,3 the highest form of truth is of the extreme right, alpha truth,NUMBERS ALONE ARE TRUTH, NOTHING ELSE,very few think like this?

MULTI WHAT EVER ISM,dosnt work,lets see if you have the brains to understand truth,ASPO, a black GREEK 5000 YEARS AGO, thouse that try to please all, please in the end ,none, the british donkey,in order in please the mob falls of the bridge ,and drowns ,70 YEARS OF THE COMSER, LIB LABOUR, LIERS.

Brition is not based on this degenerate thinking ,it is based on MIND KIND=GREEK THOUGHT =mind + matter=maths.sadly the Greek language, and latin, is not taught in or schools,ANY MORE.

What ever you think of the bnp,How ever you play your sly political games, in the end,mister smart arse,

If the purest form of truth is right wing thinking we would all still be living a nomadic existence not unlike the very earliest humans. Right wing philosophy is predicated on fear of the new and unknown. Left wing thought is the product of security and that engenders confidence to go beyond the known.

We are who we are today because of left wing thought. Let’s all give thanks to the revolutionary thinkers who took us out of ourselves 400,000 years ago.

Occasionally we may lose courage and take a backward step into religiosity and fear (James) but I have faith in humanity’s ability (if not yet collective will) to reject these and begin to finally realise the true potential of our species.